Grabs from a chase scene..

[Lake Films]

The guy wasn't so lucky!

 

[ryan brown]

Looks nice. The darks are dark, noise is minimal, and subject's are lit well.

 

[Lake Films]

Thanks. But like with every grab, the footage is much cleaner. Believe or not there's 1k of light on them in those woods. Gotta love that DVX!

 

[ryan brown]

Yeah... I could tell by that first grab that whatever light was being used was a biggy. One thing, though... on the first grab, are the blacks that dark IN camera (master ped at -10 or so), or did you bring them down in post.

I shot a short awhile back at night, and had my master ped down a bit too low, and the blacks looked a lot like those in that first picture. I decided to up the master ped a bit and manipulate in post, because I lost a lot of detail in the crushing of the blacks in camera. I'm guessing you also shot with a low mas ped...

 

[Lake Films]

Actually, no it was about -5 I believe. That was CC in bullet, bleach bypass.

 

[jgastelb]

Very nice look!!! Which 1k light did you use though? And how far was the light from the actors?
Jgastelb

 

[Lake Films]

Actually the total was 1k, 2 500w omni's. They were a pretty good distance away from the actors, maybe a good 30-40 feet away. I directed the light with barn doors.

 

[PaPa]

nice grabs, lighting is cool too
but honestly those grabs are far too videoish to do anything for me. like the term in music, over produced.. these are overly crushed.

 

[Lake Films]

Advice? Less 'black crushing' to get a more 'film look'?

 

[PaPa]

im not sure if its advice, just my preference is instead of crushing the blacks completely, try giving us a bit of the background detail to show us the forest, cause part of the visual aesthetic is the 'mise-en-scene' which is lacking since all we can see is one or two trees and those freak actors lol.

do you haev your originals? could you post them

 

[William_Robinette]

I agree. Maybe next time throw some light into the background to give the frame some depth. It also looks to me like your detail level was jacked wayyyy up?

 

[Lake Films]

This is what the clips looked like before CC. Any suggestions? Feel free to CC your version..
Detail was set at 0..

 

[Lake Films]

Just a few more...

 

[PaPa]

i think the issue you have with your exterior night shots is your lighting. you said you had a 1k light and some 500's? Your lighting contrast is too high, as in, the talent has her face extremely well lit compared to the rest of the scene. So when it comes to crushing blacks and so on, it will be difficult to achieve something that is darker without completely destroying the background. I would like to see that same scene lit with your key light not so directly infront of your subject, but more from the side, making your subject lit primarily around the edges of her figure as opposed to directly infront, but tahs just a stylistic choice. Great grabs none the less

 

[Lake Films]

Actually it was 2 500's. The problem was the power source, need a generator, lol! Thanks for the comments.

 

[Brandon Rice]

Try this...

Try this...

I took a minute to CC the original grab.... I think it looks a bit more real and filmic.

 

[Lake Films]

Very nice Brandon, I know you use Vegas. I use FCP, what did you do?
The CC process drives me crazy as I can't figure out a 'look'

 

[Brandon Rice]

Actually I use Avid. All I did was crush the blacks a bit... desaturate it some, and add some blue hue to it (not too much, or it'll look unnatural)

 

[Brandon Rice]

One thing to do also, is not only crush the blacks, but also dim the entire image a little (which I did using the curves tool in Avid) so that your subject isn't so bright...

 

[Lake Films]

I originally was going for that 'modern day' horror look. The dirty, sort of washed out yellow toned feel. Like "Saw", "The Texas chainsaw massacre" etc...But the 'blue' look works well also.